Citizens urge cooperation to fund replacement of bleachers

Demolition work on the visitors' side bleachers at Blankenship Field should be completed this week, an architectural engineering firm has been hired and a construction company will be chosen next month to replace the condemned bleachers and make them handicapped accessible.

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By Donna Smith/The Oak Ridger

Oakridger - Oak Ridge, TN

By Donna Smith/The Oak Ridger

Posted Feb. 28, 2014 at 6:59 PM

By Donna Smith/The Oak Ridger
Posted Feb. 28, 2014 at 6:59 PM

Demolition work on the visitors’ side bleachers at Blankenship Field should be completed this week, an architectural engineering firm has been hired and a construction company will be chosen next month to replace the condemned bleachers and make them handicapped accessible.

Now all that is needed … is the money.

Supporters of replacing the bleachers — and revamping Blankenship Field — urged Oak Ridge Board of Education members Monday night to come up with the money to replace the bleachers or work with City Council to come up with the money in time for the bleachers to be replaced by football season. The bleachers, which are estimated to be at least 50 years old, were condemned during an inspection in October.

“We need your leadership,” resident James Powers told the School Board at its meeting in the School Administration Building. Powers is part of the Blankenship Revitalization Committee, a grassroots group of area individuals and Oak Ridge High School alumni who are working on a major project to upgrade Blankenship Field. He told Board members the Committee will be asking for money from alumni and in doing that the Committee needs to convey to alumni that everyone — including Council and School Board — are working together and committed to the upgrades.

The Committee’s plan won’t include replacing the bleachers, he and other members indicated. They said detailed information on the plan will be forthcoming.

“I would ask you to fully fund this project if at all possible,” Rick Chinn, an Oak Ridge resident and Committee member, told the School Board.

He said as an economic developer he can say that Blankenship Field and Oak Ridge football are a big draw to bring people into the city.

The estimated cost for replacing the unsafe bleachers, according to a report from Oak Ridge architectural-engineering firm Adams Craft Herz Walker (ACHW) is $450,000 for bleachers to accommodate 3,000 people or $350,000 for 2,000 people.

On Monday night, the School Board voted to hire Michael Brady Inc., an architectural engineering firm, for the bleacher project. The firm will do site plans for site survey; demolition plans; site dimension, grading, drainage and utility plans; architectural layout plans of bleacher configuration; ADA (Americans with Disabilities Act) access to field level; and project manual with specifications, according to its letter to Allen Thacker, the school system’s supervisor of maintenance and operations,

The firm’s fees for architectural design services will be 5 percent of the total construction cost and, according to the letter, the school system’s estimated budget for the project is $550,000.